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Rory Butcher to complete season with Motorbase

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Motorbase Performance has confirmed that Rory Butcher will replace Luke Davenport for the remainder of the 2017 BTCC season.

Davenport has been sidelined for the remainder of the year as result of the injuries he sustained at Croft prior to the summer break, with the team running just two cars at Snetterton as a result.

In order to retain its TOCA BTCC Licence, the team was required to be back to full-strength for the seventh meeting of the campaign at Knockhill, with work currently ongoing to complete the build of a replacement Ford Focus, which is now due to take part in shakedown on Wednesday after the team worked round the clock to prepare for the long trip to Scotland.

Having tested 30-year-old Butcher during the summer break, Motorbase has now confirmed that the Scot will join Mat Jackson and Martin Depper for the remainder of the season in what will be his first time competing in touring car machinery.

Butcher, the brother-in-law of current BTCC champion Gordon Shedden, has previously raced for Motorbase in the British GT Championship and finished second in the GTE class of the European Le Mans Series last year.

“He’s going to help keep my TBL for a start!” Motorbase boss David Bartrum told TouringCarTimes when asked about the deal. “In all seriousness, after Luke’s accident it became clear that we would need to look for another driver to keep the third car on track and when I sat down with Oly [Collins – team manager] to look at the options, Rory was the first name on the list for us both. From there, there was no need to really look any further.

“If you think about it, he might have spent the last few years racing in rear-wheel drive GT cars, but he knows all manner of cars from his instructing work and there is no question of his ability behind the wheel. All he will need is some time to learn the car, but he showed in the test at Snetterton that he was on the pace straight away.

“He was the right choice for both me and Oly and it’s a no brainer because he already knows the team, he knows the mechanics and he knows the engineers from his time in our Aston Martin. It’s almost like he’s coming back in and putting on an old pair of shoes.

“Obviously when it comes to this weekend, he knows the circuit as well as anybody else but he just needs time to adjust to the car, and hopefully people won’t put too much pressure on as Knockhill is the first time the car will run and he needs time to bed in to the BTCC.

“We need to let him get this weekend under his belt and then see where he can go from there.”

Butcher himself was understandably pleased to be able to join the grid for his home round of the campaign.

“The car has only just been built and it’s my first time in touring cars so it’s a kind of shakedown for the car and me,” he said. “I’m absolutely buzzing though! When I first started racing, I looked up to the touring cars and it was my ambition to reach the BTCC grid. Although my racing career has ended up going across to sports car racing and the GT world, switching over to the BTCC is a dream come-true. Obviously it’s got close relations to the family with Gordon [Shedden] being my brother-in-law and it’s exciting to have the chance to join him on the grid for the rest of this season.”